Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. Grows Stock Position in Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN)

Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. lifted its stake in shares of Accenture PLC (NYSE:ACN - Free Report) by 0.5% during the first quarter, according to the company in its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The firm owned 383,436 shares of the information technology services provider's stock after purchasing an additional 1,890 shares during the quarter. Accenture accounts for about 1.2% of Johnson Investment Counsel Inc.'s holdings, making the stock its 23rd largest position. Johnson Investment Counsel Inc. owned about 0.06% of Accenture worth $119,647,000 as of its most recent filing with the SEC.

Other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently made changes to their positions in the company. Beacon Capital Management LLC boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 472.4% in the 1st quarter. Beacon Capital Management LLC now owns 2,736 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $854,000 after purchasing an additional 2,258 shares in the last quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue boosted its holdings in shares of Accenture by 22.5% in the 1st quarter. State of Alaska Department of Revenue now owns 87,297 shares of the information technology services provider's stock worth $27,239,000 after purchasing an additional 16,055 shares in the last quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 12.8% during the 1st quarter. CWA Asset Management Group LLC now owns 21,524 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $6,716,000 after acquiring an additional 2,447 shares during the period. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 13.4% during the 1st quarter. Kingswood Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 2,095 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $654,000 after acquiring an additional 248 shares during the period. Finally, Accelerate Investment Advisors LLC boosted its holdings in Accenture by 14.7% during the 1st quarter. Accelerate Investment Advisors LLC now owns 727 shares of the information technology services provider's stock valued at $227,000 after acquiring an additional 93 shares during the period. 75.14% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Wall Street Analyst Weigh In

Several brokerages recently weighed in on ACN. Mizuho dropped their target price on Accenture from $428.00 to $398.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a report on Wednesday, March 19th. BMO Capital Markets upped their price target on Accenture to $355.00 and gave the company a "hold" rating in a research report on Wednesday, March 26th. Royal Bank Of Canada lowered their price target on Accenture from $399.00 to $392.00 and set an "outperform" rating for the company in a research report on Friday, March 21st. Benchmark reaffirmed a "mixed" rating on shares of Accenture in a research report on Friday. Finally, Baird R W raised Accenture from a "hold" rating to a "strong-buy" rating in a research report on Monday, March 17th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating, fourteen have assigned a buy rating and one has issued a strong buy rating to the stock. According to MarketBeat, the company has a consensus rating of "Moderate Buy" and an average price target of $380.00.

Accenture Price Performance

Shares of ACN stock traded down $20.72 during trading hours on Friday, hitting $285.66. The stock had a trading volume of 11,638,670 shares, compared to its average volume of 2,952,218. Accenture PLC has a one year low of $274.33 and a one year high of $398.35. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.17, a current ratio of 1.48 and a quick ratio of 1.48. The stock's 50-day moving average price is $306.94 and its two-hundred day moving average price is $334.32. The stock has a market capitalization of $178.92 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 23.59, a PEG ratio of 3.09 and a beta of 1.33.

Accenture (NYSE:ACN - Get Free Report) last issued its earnings results on Friday, June 20th. The information technology services provider reported $3.49 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $3.32 by $0.17. Accenture had a return on equity of 26.49% and a net margin of 11.43%. The firm had revenue of $17.73 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts' expectations of $17.26 billion. During the same period in the previous year, the firm posted $3.13 earnings per share. The business's revenue was up 7.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Equities analysts forecast that Accenture PLC will post 12.73 EPS for the current year.

Accenture Announces Dividend

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, August 15th. Investors of record on Thursday, July 10th will be paid a $1.48 dividend. This represents a $5.92 annualized dividend and a yield of 2.07%. Accenture's dividend payout ratio (DPR) is currently 48.89%.

Insider Buying and Selling

In other news, General Counsel Joel Unruch sold 3,563 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The stock was sold at an average price of $281.78, for a total transaction of $1,003,982.14. Following the completion of the sale, the general counsel now owns 17,237 shares in the company, valued at approximately $4,857,041.86. This represents a 17.13% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is accessible through this hyperlink. Also, CEO Julie Spellman Sweet sold 2,284 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, April 11th. The shares were sold at an average price of $281.63, for a total value of $643,242.92. Following the sale, the chief executive officer now owns 9,965 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately $2,806,442.95. This represents a 18.65% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale can be found here. Insiders have sold a total of 8,516 shares of company stock valued at $2,507,366 over the last quarter. 0.02% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

About Accenture

Accenture plc, a professional services company, provides strategy and consulting, industry X, song, and technology and operation services worldwide. The company offers application services, including agile transformation, DevOps, application modernization, enterprise architecture, software and quality engineering, data management; intelligent automation comprising robotic process automation, natural language processing, and virtual agents; and application management services, as well as software engineering services; strategy and consulting services; data and analytics strategy, data discovery and augmentation, data management and beyond, data democratization, and industrialized solutions comprising turnkey analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) solutions; metaverse; and sustainability services.